


Choices, Choices

by Galaxxi



Series: ask-joeydrewstudios fics [11]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Angst, Gen, Not AU canon, Short One Shot, ask-joeydrewstudios, hard decisions, implied character deaths, self contained angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 12:54:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15001316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galaxxi/pseuds/Galaxxi
Summary: Fic Request: The Ink Machine malfunctions, and Joey either has to destroy it to save the studio, or let his staff die (or worse) to save his toons. Non-canon ask-joeydrewstudios angstfic.





	Choices, Choices

**Author's Note:**

> anonymous: (Say The Ink Machine Broke Down And Kept Spewing Its Magic Ink, Would Joey Destroy It To Save His Employees From Being Possessed But Also Killing Bendy, Boris, and Alice in the Process Or Would He Leave It On Thereby Sacrificing His Crew)  
> me: you're a monster and this is horrible but i'll write it anyways For The Suffering

   It’s astounding just how quickly everything can go so, so wrong. 

   Joey stood at his ink machine, covered in ink and with an axe held too tightly in his hands. He was breathing heavily and his eyes were wide and desperate as he watched steam rise from under the panels of the machine and the pipes strain under the pressure of the ink that he could _hear_ gushing through them at an intensity faster than they were ever built to withstand. The damn thing had malfunctioned and it was outputting too much ink at once, _several_ pipes had burst with many more about to go and the studio was becoming a mess. Ink was seeping through the floors and down the walls on every level, some places had already flooded as high as your knees, and people were panicking. There was no shutting it down, Wally and Thomas had already tried. Now, he was looking at a worse-case scenario: he had to destroy the machine that nearly bankrupted his company, and brought him the three greatest joys in his life. If he didn’t… his studio and staff would pay the ultimate price. 

  The ink was cursed, some might say _possessed_ , and it had a nasty habit of… _manipulating_ everything it could touch. Inanimate objects, people… sometimes for the better, usually for the worse. A few drops were harmless, but cover someone or something in it or god-forbid they _consume_ the stuff at all and they’d most likely be corrupted from their original state. He’d had a few cases of items being possessed or people being changed - those were few and far-between, and while reverting people wasn’t the easiest task, he had done it. Though, it had never been more than one person at a time - to bring dozens, _hundreds_ of people back from the effects of the ink? To keep them locked away from the world and their families until he _could?_ It would never work. That didn’t even account for how many people would outright drown in the impending flood, or those who the ink deemed ‘incompatible’ and were simply poisoned by it. There would be no coming back from the devastation. It would be the end of his studio and the lives of many he considered his friends.

  But… if he destroyed this machine, it would be the end of his toons. They needed the machine’s ink to live, and they’d certainly dry out and die sooner than they could build a new one or even repair this one. He’d come to think of them as his children, the only thing he’s ever had that he could call a real family… could he really do this and return to them, only to tell them what would become of them? They were only a few years old, and already their clocks would be ticking, doomed to die slow, painful deaths… he wouldn’t be able to do anything as he watched them gradually fade into nothingness. He had been through a lot in life, but watching his children die slowly in front of him would easily be the worst thing he could ever experience. He wouldn’t even be able to make a public announcement over his loss, the machine and the toons were the studio’s best-kept secret. He’d be suffering through his greatest tragedy while having to put on a smile for the public all at the same time. 

   Hundreds of lives for the three he held most dear, or their three lives for hundreds. And what would they think of him if he chose the former…

  With every second he spent weighing his options, the studio flooded a little more, and someone else got closer to their end. 

  He tensed up, letting the tears flow and his heart drop before lifting the axe far above his head and swinging down with all the strength he could manage at the machine.

**Author's Note:**

> ...Don't forget to leave kudos and a comment if you'd like, they encourage me to keep writing. Will try to write fluff soon to balance out all the suffering~


End file.
